


The Sun Will Rise

by ShapeShiftersandFire



Series: Two Four Two [2]
Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gen, Gunshot Wounds, It's happening, Panic Attacks, this is it, this thing is really going up!!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:20:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24782203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShapeShiftersandFire/pseuds/ShapeShiftersandFire
Summary: Reading the folk tale of "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" never led Belle to believe she would find herself in a similar situation, except for the fact that the bear is her.
Relationships: Beast/Belle (Disney)
Series: Two Four Two [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1308170
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9
Collections: Animated Shapeshifter Universe





	1. when the sun sets

The air is cool. Autumn is on its way in; Belle can feel a frost coming in with the sunset. She yawns as a breeze brushes her face. The need for hibernation has never been one she’s ever felt the need to meet, unlike her single-formed wild cousins, though it tends to upset her sleep schedule in the winter months. Were it not for her father’s insistence that she wake every morning at seven and his urging that she stay in her human form as much as possible, Belle might very well succumb to the pull of hibernation and sleep her winters away.

She struggles to finish feeding the goats for the evening. It’s a task that goes by slowly when she can hear the river miles away and the splashing of trout calling to her. She doesn’t need to fish, much like she doesn’t need to respond to any standard physiological signal from her bear form when she lives as she does.

Although, perhaps, it’s because she’s been cooped up all day, helping her father with another of his brilliant but eccentric inventions that has an equal chance of succeeding as much as it does of failing. She rarely sleeps well on nights where she hasn’t gone outdoors, on nights when she’s surrounded by low walls and the smell of metal. The raw scene sits too heavy in her lungs, choking her, and it’s perhaps the effort to cleanse the weight from her body that makes her so restless.

And when at last the goats and the chickens have eaten their fill, Belle leaves the bucket on the barrel and goes back inside, longing to feel the wind in her fur and the grass under her paws, to scratch the itch, the need for wandering, that perpetually sits just below her skin. The last few bright rays of sunlight pour in through the window, giving her the feeling that if she doesn’t leave now, she never will, despite there being tomorrow. The walls are too thick. She can’t wait that long.

“Papa,” she calls down to the basement. A harsh grinding sound emits from whatever new invention her father has begun working on. “I’m going for a run!”

The grinding sound stops as Maurice registers Belle’s words. The wheels of his creeper grate on the floor. “Oh, a-alright, Belle! Just be careful! And don’t come back too late!”

“I won’t!” She’s laughing as she runs out the door, forgetting that anyone from the footpath can see her as she trades her blue-and-white dress for thick brown fur and gallops up the hill, laughing into the wind.

 _This_ is what she’s longed for all day. The feeling of freedom is matched by nothing; in this form, she has nothing to worry about. No goats to feed, no machines to build; the smell of oil and hot, grinding metal is far behind her and the close walls of the basement no longer hold any power over her. What fills her ears now is not the sound of loose screws and gears and levers, but the sounds of birds and the deer and the river, full of trout, inviting her to join in the fishing festivities before the season is out.

She leaps over the crest of the hill, barreling down toward the river at full speed without tripping over her own paws and tumbling the rest of the way down. Other bears have already made themselves at home, but she’s too late for the main event; bears are clearing out as she reaches the river bank, and as she gets settled in a nice spot in the middle of the river, only she and one other remain.

“Good fishing!” the home-bound bears call. The late fishers call back in farewell and thanks.

“Maybe you’ll catch the big one, Belle,” the fisher says. His voice is gruff in a pleasant way, not a raspy tone that grates Belle’s ears. “It’s been nothing but your average fish all afternoon.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Belle says. Pride wells in her chest that she’s well known enough among her wild cousins that they call her by name. Some, at least. It’s not quite a bear-enough name for the rest, some who have taken to calling her _Brika_ , in bear meaning “fine fur,” and some who call her nothing at all. Getting her attention consists of roaring in her direction or calling “Hey, you!” It’s not quite as dignified as Belle likes, but it’s better than being ignored. She narrowly misses a trout as it leaps in front of her nose. “Good fishing otherwise?”

“Oh, certainly,” her companion, Tokka, replies. He snatches a fish from the top of its arch and triumphantly pins it against a nearby rock. “Not one bear has left hungry today. A harsh winter is on its way.”

Belle grabs one by the tail; it flails unpleasantly in her mouth. She nearly drops it. “Is that so?” She slams the fish onto a rock of her own and begins tearing into it. There’s something about the natural taste of trout that her father’s cooking will never beat. “I thought it was the other way around.”

Tokka rips a chunk of flesh from the trout. “In theory,” he says, gulping it down. “But there’s always a pattern: when the fish are plentiful, no one goes hungry and everyone survives.”

She laughs, perhaps unintentionally. “How can you be sure it isn’t because every sleeps through it?”

Her companion huffs good-naturedly. “Harsher winters make my shoulders ache,” he says. “Every time, without fail, I’m stiff when I wake up. Every other year, at least.”

“At most?”

“Every few years.”

They fall silent for the time being, eagerly gorging themselves on the river’s gifts, though Belle cautions herself against taking too much from the bears that need it more. She hooks a second, smaller trout from the water with her claws and picks what meat she can off it.

Tokka grunts as he rips the tail from a recent catch. “Where’ve you been the last three days, anyway, Belle? I’d have thought you’d be here for First Rush.”

Belle chews her fish slowly with a sigh, fondly thinking of her father rushing around the basement as he tries to figure out what piece goes where. “Helping my father,” she says with a gentle laugh. “He’s been working on a new invention the last three days and he’s still not quite—” She pauses to swallow and tear a new bite from her fish “—done with it yet.”

“Always working on something, isn’t he?” Tokka chuckles and finishes his fish. “At least you didn’t miss the entire season.”

She nods in agreement. Under any other circumstance, she wouldn’t have been late to First Rush; she’s made it every year for the last six years, and it nearly pains her to think of the activity she missed out on in the first day—so much more entertaining and exciting than the plain and ordinary day-to-day life of the little provincial town she lived in. There are some days—and she would never admit this to her father—that she thinks of leaving it all behind and living with her wild cousins. And if it had just been her living alone, she might. But she lives with her father, and she can’t bear to leave him alone when he’s already lost his wife.

If that wasn’t enough to stop her, it’s the not knowing whether she’d lose her human form if she remained a bear too long, if she’d lose herself, everything that makes her who she is; if she’d forget she was ever human and fully become the bear that makes up half of her being. Somehow, that scares her more than leaving her father alone.

“I’ll make it next year,” she says. What few fish she’s gotten today is better than nothing; the fishing day quickly comes to an end in the next few minutes, and while she bids Tokka farewell, she isn’t quite ready to go home yet. The sun is still out, though sinking quickly, and Belle decides it wouldn’t hurt if she took the long way home through the woods to get her fill of fresh air.

She takes a little-worn path through the woods, admiring the golden glow on the undergrowth. A light breeze rustles the bushes; if her human form, she’d consider it cold, but her fur is thick enough that the only place she feels the slight chill is her nose, the very thing that fails her. Her ears, luckily, don’t. She hears the deliberate alternating crunch of leaves under someone’s weight. And then—

 _“Right there_ ,” Belle hears the whisper. “ _That bear—watch._ ” She pricks her ears. Another bear? She stops and searches the area with sight and smell; she hadn’t scented another bear when she came through this area and she can’t scent one now. No one had passed through. No one—

But _her._

Belle’s heart races. In her peripheral vision, she sees the glint of a flare muzzle in the fading sunlight. She bolts just as a spark flashes, a bang resonates in her ears, and something grazes her shoulder. She flattens them against her head, hoping to block out the harsh sound, as she races through the trees with a frightened roar.

Another shot is fired behind her. Belle pushes on, faster. Any slower and there will be a bullet in her pelt…in her heart, in her head, in her gut…She has flashes of a glossy red coat. And that scares her more than anything.

Behind her is the hunter, still hell-bent on having her fur as his rug, no doubt. He fires off three more shots, each one missing her but not the trees, and gives chase after her.

Belle, fueled by fear and desperation, hears the hunter crashing through the bushes behind her. He’s relentless, unwilling to give up his quarry at any cost.

_Run. Run! RUN!_

She weaves in and out of trees, over and under logs, through streams and puddles, but no matter what she does she can’t seem to lose the hunter. He’s on her tail at every step and turn. He’s practically matching her step for step and she’s at top speed.

All sense abandons Belle in favor of sheer instinct, all of it telling her to keep running. But she can’t keep up with herself; her lungs start burning, her legs are aching, but fear keeps driving her; if she stops, she’ll die. The hunter hasn’t given up on her yet. She can hear him chasing after her still, now calling after an accomplice she hadn’t scented earlier.

_“Come on, LeFou, keep up! I won’t lose that bear!”_

The scream Belle wants to release comes out as a hoarse, gasping roar lost to the aching in her chest. She knows that voice. She knows _him._

Gaston, who hunts her so relentlessly day in and day out for her hand in marriage, is hunting her for real—for sport—for her blood and fur—and he doesn’t realize it.

She keeps going, plunging deeper into the forest, driven on by desperation and the need to get as far from Gaston as possible, faced with the very real possibility that soon she’s going to run out of open ground and be backed into a corner.

_Climb!_

Belle leaps for the nearest tree, hooking her claws into the trunk and hauling herself up as fast as she can possibly manage. The tree she’s chosen has a thick web of branches and leaves, enough to give her cover until Gaston finally gives up and goes home.

 _Higher! Higher!_ She hears Gaston’s footsteps getting closer and his companion’s harsh wheezing not far behind. The branches grow thicker around her; she goes until she can barely see Gaston through the leaves. Only then does she shift back and press herself up against the trunk.

The feeling following, as her body comes down from its fear-induced high, is nothing short of falling into jagged rocks. It hits her all at once as her body comes down from its high—she’s exhausted, she’s sore, she’s never run that fast or that far and it takes more willpower than she has at the moment to stay awake. And…oh, dear…

Something warm seeps into her dress, there, on the back on her shoulder. When she tries to lean back against the tree, sharp pain runs through her shoulder. Belle reaches back touch her wound and feels blood on her fingers. Her heart races; she shakes uncontrollably. Her fingers come away coated in shiny red. _She_ _’s seen that color before—_

She’s been shot.

_Oh, no. Oh, no. No._

This is what Papa warned her about.

He’s always told her to be careful, ever since she was seven. Be careful, be careful, be careful, over and over again. Belle had always thought he was just that, attentive and careful, but this time her yearning for exploration got the best of her.

Now she’s trapped. Bleeding. Miles from home. And below her is a relentless hunter who won’t rest until he has her fur under his chair.

She has to get home. Before Gaston finds her, before he makes the connection. A secret she’s kept well for so long, nearly blown because of her lack of foresight. She has to get home.

Belle bites back a groan, pressing herself into the tree as much as her shoulder will allow, hoping she’s out of sight as Gaston lurks around the base of the tree. Hoping he doesn’t think to climb the tree to find her. She’s got no explanation prepared, but why prepare something you’ll never need? She quiets her breathing and listens, still.

“Didya find it, Gaston?” LeFou’s voice is enough to give her a clue to Gaston’s whereabouts. They’re close to the tree, too close, just near the base. If they get close enough, all they’d have to do is look up—

_Or wait for her blood to run down the bark—_

_“Shh!”_

The hammering in her chest is nearly loud enough to deafen the sound of dead leaves crunching under Gaston’s feet. She flattens herself against the tree as much as her shoulder will allow, holding her breath as Gaston gets closer to her tree. Her mind races. Has she left claw marks in the bark? Can he see them? What if he decides to climb the tree? She couldn’t get down fast enough with her shoulder.

She’s trapped. As good as dead. Oh, why did she have to go for that walk? Why didn’t she go home as soon as the fishing was over? _Come straight home,_ that’s always what her father told her. _Come straight home, don_ _’t stay out too late, come straight home,_ over and over and over. And Belle thought she would have listened by now, but no, her sense of longing for adventure and fresh air always gets the better of her, always overrides her common sense and need to listen to her father, and what has it gotten her this time? Shot, and up a tree with no foreseeable way out. She’s gotten herself trapped, and it’s all because of her foolishness.

Belle bites her lip, trembling with the effort to contain her sobs. Her vision blurs, warm tears trail her cheeks; she can barely see Gaston through the thick branches and her blurred vision. She prays to a bear deity she has never believed in to keep her safe, to help her get home to her father alive. He can’t lose her, too. Not like this, not the same way.

_She prays to her mother._

It’s tense, silent. Belle trembles uncontrollably; Gaston stalks around the base of her tree, every step crunch and crackling; LeFou anxiously searches the branches; the sun sinks further over the horizon. If only it could set faster, maybe, just _maybe_ Gaston would go away.

LeFou breaks the silence with a whisper Belle can’t hear over her own pulse, and by some miracle it marks the last straw for Gaston.

“I’ll come back tomorrow, then,” he declares, not so quietly. “The bear’s been shot, it won’t be getting very far. LeFou, you stay here and track the bear once it comes down from the tree.” He gives LeFou specific instructions to leave a trail and storms off.

Belle inhales heavily. It’s not the result she wanted, but it’s better than nothing. She looks to the setting sun. Now she’ll have to wait and hope that LeFou fails and falls asleep on watch.

It takes longer than she likes, but within a couple hours LeFou is snoring loudly against the base on another nearby tree. Certain of his unbreakable slumber, Belle beings to arduous task of getting herself down from the tree.

It’s easier said than done. The mobility of her injured shoulder is limited. Any grab she makes at a branch falters quickly; the pain makes her arm weak. She has to let go sooner than she would like, and her descent is overly clumsy and off balance.

Then again, she’s never been a very good climber.

At last her feet are back on solid ground. Now she begins the even more difficult task of getting herself home. She’s worn out, drained, and injured, but she can’t stay there. Gaston is out for her fur, however unknowing, and LeFou is supposed to have her under close surveillance. She can’t afford to falter now, though her exceedingly exhausting state makes the journey ahead of her that much more trying.

Nonetheless, she grips her shoulder, bleeding beginning to slow, and sets off.

Between her weakened state and the new darkness of the forest, Belle finds it increasingly challenging to navigate any kind of path in the direction of home. She finds her own scent trail, intertwined with Gaston’s, and follows it back to the river, follows the river back to the meadow ridge behind her home, having stumbled and fallen more times than she preferred, over logs, over rocks, once into a stream. It takes everything she has not to lay there for the night.

The meadow poses even more of a challenge. There are no trees to lean on. Belle staggers across the open space, swaying from one direction to another, increasingly desperate as the house looms closer. Her shoulder smarts, new blood soaks into her now water-soaked dress.

And then, at last, she staggers onto the porch.

“Papa…” Belle stumbles into the house, gripping her shoulder. The room is dark, the candle long since blown out. Her father is nowhere to be seen—his absence sends fear pulsing through Belle’s body; her shoulder throbs that much more and oozes blood between her fingers. “Papa…” She reaches for the table beside the door, but the pressure sends bolts of pain through her shoulder and she collapses on the floor. She calls her for father again, though her voice is weakening and strained. “ _Papa!_ ” She’s uncomfortably warm now. She can feel the sweat beading on her forehead.

This time her father hears her, just as nausea-inducing panic sets in. Her throat tightens. She retches and whimpers, with only the sound of her father’s voice taking the edge off her nerves. “Belle? Belle, what happened? Belle!”

She blinks with a shiver of pain, raising her head and looking up into Maurice’s worried blue eyes. “Papa…” She lays her head on the floor. “My shoulder…”

“Let me see.” Maurice gently moves Belle’s hand from her shoulder to inspect the wound. She flinches as he moves her dress away from the wound. “Oh, dear…Come on, Belle, come upstairs.” He helps her off the floor, supporting her by her good arm as he leads her up the stairs to her room.

Belle leans heavily on her father for support, her feet clumsy underneath her and far out of her control. When she stumbles on the stairs, her first reaction is to reach out to break her fall, but she does so with her injured arm and only falls further as the limb collapses underneath her.

“It’s all right, Belle, I’ve got you.”

She growls as Maurice hauls her up with a worried apology. He nearly drags her up to her room, unceremoniously dumping her onto her bed; between their height difference and Belle’s near dead-weight, it’s a wonder she manages to stay on the mattress without rolling to the floor.

Maurice rolls Belle onto her side, mindful of her wound. He peels away the bloodied fabric again. It’s not a deep wound, more of a graze, with no evidence that the bullet was ever lodged into her shoulder. He breathes a sigh of relief; he won’t need to call a doctor tonight.

“Give me one minute, Belle,” he says, and leaves her to retrieve the medicine box. It’s a rarely used item in their household, and thankfully so; Maurice can only recall using it for minor injuries. Luckily, he’s skilled enough in shapeshifter medicine to be able to care for his daughter without outside help. While a burden was undoubtedly the wrong word to use for what he carried, it was something he had gotten used to in the years following his wife’s passing. It was necessary to keep Belle safe.

Belle holds her arm against her chest. Even the slightest movement of her fingers makes her wound smart. She shivers. The uncomfortable warmth has settled into better, yet equally uncomfortable cold, and the sweat has settled into an uncomfortable layer of chilled moisture over her body. Her father has been gone too long. Only a minute, he said? Has it been that long? Longer?

Pain clouds her thinking. What is only a minute feels like an eternity and her relief is a cold chill when he returns with the box affectionately painted with her name and her paw print. She shuts her eyes as her father rests the box on her nightstand, and lets him go to work on treating her wound. She’s thankful he doesn’t ask any questions, not until long after he’s finished bandaging her shoulder, her arm now in a well-constructed sling, and given her medicine to dull the pain.

She lies on her side, out of her stained and soaked dress and now in her nightgown, her head clearer and her pain under control, though any movement sends sharp twinges through her upper back. Maurice sits at her bedside, adjusting the blanket over her. She pushes her face into the softness of the pillow. By some miracle, she’s made it home, she’s alive, and she’s in her own bed. The fabric smells like her, woody and familiar and faintly of fish and river water, and it’s _home._ Even as exhaustion begins to sink in, Belle doesn’t forget to thank her mother and the bear deity—she may not believe, but she’s not ungrateful.

“What happened, Belle?”

Belle closes her eyes, remembering the moment she felt the harsh metal graze her shoulder. She could hear the voice in the back of her mind, cursing his poor luck. “The hunter shot me,” she says softly. “Gaston.”

“Oh, dear…”Maurice runs his hand over Belle’s head. Even though the action comforts her, the gunshot still echoes in her ears. There’s no one hunting anymore, not at this hour, not so close to the house, but she swears she can hear it outside her window. A hard, resounding echo rippling through the night. “Belle,” he starts gently, and she groans softly, knowing where his words are heading, “I know this isn’t what you want to hear right now, but…please, you need to be careful. You’re all I have left.”

“I will, Papa,” she promises, as she has so many times before. She doesn’t remind him that this is the only time she’s ever been injured on an outing. Right now, she’s grateful for his company. She shifts gingerly, slipping her hand out from underneath the pillow to take his hand in hers. “Please stay.”

“I’ll be right here, Belle.”

Belle drifts to sleep, dreaming of warmth and the color red.


	2. when the wind calls

She voluntarily confines herself to the house for the next few days, immersed in her books and doing her best not to think of the world outside. It only brings back strong memories of the danger of the night, the sounds of gunshots, and the suffocating feeling of being trapped in that tree with a relentless hunter circling like a bloodhound. She doesn’t want to leave the house, the safety of her father, and she most certainly doesn’t want to go into town.

They think ill of her as it is, they think her odd, and strolling down the streets with her arm in a sling and her shoulder heavily bandaged will only draw more attention and questions than Belle is willing to tolerate.

So, shut in and temporarily banned from her father’s basement workshop, she makes herself as comfortable on the couch as her shoulder will allow, shuffling every few minutes to ease the tension in her neck and gingerly shift her position. Once she tries to roll onto her back and is met with dissatisfaction and needles through her shoulder.

She’s stuck lying on her right side. It’s incredibly difficult to turn pages and keep the book in front of her at the same time. She slowly leafs through the pages. The familiar words send a shiver of calm down her spine.

_East of the Sun and West of the Moon._

Belle closes her eyes. She runs her fingers over the page, feeling every word in her veins. She knows them by heart.

_Once on a time there was a poor man who had so many children that he did not have enough food or clothing to give them..._

A great White Bear, on a Thursday evening when the weather is harsh and cold, approaches the home of the poor man and asks for his youngest and prettiest daughter’s hand in marriage, and in exchange the White Bear would make him rich. The man first discusses the matter with his daughter, who is reluctant to go but ultimately persuaded; the next Thursday evening she sets off with the White Bear to his great enchanted castle, interior shining in silver and gold, atop a steep hill.

But not all is as it seems, for despite the beauty of the castle, the girl never sees the man who comes in and lays beside her at night, and she begins to long for her family, going about all day alone with no one around. The man who lays beside her is the White Bear, throwing off his bear form at night when the light is out; when morning comes he resumes his bear form and is off again, leaving the girl alone in the castle. The White Bear, seeing her sorrow, allows her to see her family under the condition that she not speak to her mother, lest she make them both unlucky.

While the girl never forgets her promise, her mother is, after much cajoling, able to get her upstairs, where she tells the entire story. “It may be a troll you slept with,” says her mother, and sends her on her way with a candle to light while the man slept, warning her not to drop any tallow on him. The girl did just that, and to her astonishment, the man is a handsome prince by night, and the White Bear by day.

Alas, three drops of tallow fall on the prince, waking him. Upset, he tells the peasant girl that had she waited a full year, he would have been free of his bear form and able to marry her without consequence. Now, he must marry his stepmother’s daughter, a troll princess. He leaves that night, telling her she mightn't follow him to the troll's castle, and when she wakes in the morning the castle has vanished.

So she sets out on her journey to find the castle, east of the sun and west of the moon, helped by a pair of hags and the Winds, until at last she finds him, held prisoner by his troll stepmother. He tells her of his plan to escape and marry her: he will declare that he will marry anyone capable of washing the tallow drops from his shirt. Since the trolls cannot, he calls upon the peasant girl, who can, and marries her and breaks the curse.

Every word sends a chill up her spine. The ending takes her breath away, not because the couple got their happy ending, but because the prince lost his bear form. It's a fact that's never sat well with her, when her bear form is an inseparable part of her. To lose it would be the death of her.

She often wonders if her mother felt the same of her own story, _The She-Wolf_. Belle had never been as enraptured by the story as her mother had, but that was to be expected. Each shapeshifter has their own story, a folktale or myth, from somewhere around the world that resonated with them and their form. Belle's was _East of the Sun and West of the Moon;_ her mother's, _The She-Wolf._

(She tries not to think about _The She-Wolf._ )

Belle shuts the back cover slowly and hugs the book to her chest. Even in the hardest of times, that story has always been a comfort to her. Whether she’s more like the White Bear or the peasant girl, and she often thinks she’s a mix of both, there’s some adventure waiting out there for her, something that will take her far from the confines of this provincial life.

She’s dreamed of it so often…and just as she’s about to drift off, there’s a commotion outside. The chickens run about in panic, the goats bleat fearfully; among all this she hears a deep, raspy huff and Tokka’s voice calling her.

“Belle? Belle, are you there?”

Belle sits up as fast as her injured shoulder would allow, nearly dropping her book in the process. She slips the book reverently onto the table beside the couch, silently apologizing to it for nearly dropping it so, and goes outside. Amid the chaos of screeching and scattered chickens and terrified goats is Tokka, searching around the perimeter of the cottage. His eyes are bright with alarm, his pelt ruffled, and the scent of fear rolls off him. Belle flinches. Something more than a few panicked farm animals has him on edge.

“I’m here, Tokka!” She gets to the bottom step as Tokka looks up and heaves a sigh of relief. The older bear lumbers over to her.

“Oh, thank Uraija!” Tokka meets her at the base of the steps. “I was so worried. I—”

“Worried?” Belle echoes, interrupting him. “What happened?”

Tokka huffs nervously. “We first heard gunshots four nights ago,” he says, looking toward the woods, “just after sunset began. No one in the area was hurt, thankfully.” He stops and Belle holds her breath a moment. Then she drops it: “Not ‘no one,’ Tokka.” She gestures to her arm. Tokka’s eyes grow wide.

“Uraija’s fang, Belle! What happened? Who did this?”

“The hunter,” Belle answers slowly. “He found me while I was on my way home. Those gunshots you heard were fire at me. One grazed my shoulder. I’m all right. I promise. I’ve stayed home to avoid questions.”

Relief and worry still cloud Tokka’s eyes, but he doesn’t push her for any details. He seems content enough with her answer.

“What then?” Belle asks. If Tokka had heard the shots four nights ago, the shots Gaston unknowingly fired at Belle, he would have come sooner. Something else had to have happened to keep Tokka from checking on her.

He sighs. His voice drops. “We heard them again, two nights ago. We lost someone.” He eyes her wrapped arm with fear. “I was so worried it was you.” He sits down; the blood drains from Belle’s face. She sits down on the steps. When she speaks, her voice is small and strained with disbelief: “Who?”

“Taniq.”

Belle leans back against the steps. Taniq is—was—a young bear, barely out of his second hibernation. Too young to be a hunter’s trophy. Too young to be dead. “Uraija give him peace and safe hunting.” She murmurs the prayerful phrase of the bears. Tokka repeats it, just barely. They sit in silence for Taniq.

When the moment passes, Tokka raises his head to Belle. “When you never returned for the Rush, we’d assumed the worse. Until we found out.”

Belle chokes up. She knows what that’s like. To find out so horribly, so suddenly. To not have the time to prepare yourself for the worst.

She tries not to think about _The She-Wolf._ She tries not to think about the market—

She forces out the word. “How?”

“Mina,” Tokka whispers. “His sister.”

Belle coughs. Tokka’s face blurs. She blinks away tears.

_A busy street, the traders, the stalls, goods placed in hands where money once sat—_

“She went to town yesterday,” he continued. “She had to know. She heard them describe her brother’s fur pattern accurately.” He shook his head. “That was all the proof she needed. I thank the stars she didn’t see what was left of him.”

_She wishes she_ _’d been as lucky._

She trembles uncontrollably. This is too much. Too harsh. It’s bringing up things she doesn’t want to remember—

_A flash of red—_

“Come here, Belle.” Tokka pulls her into a warm embrace and lets her cry. He asks no questions. He doesn’t need to.

The first time Belle goes into town after her arm is out of the sling, she’s jumpy and nervous. She clutches her book to her chest, alert and on the lookout for Gaston. She hasn’t seen him since that night in the woods, and since then she’s had nightmares filled with gunshots and red, all made worse by Tokka’s news. More than once she’s woken screaming. She tells her father about Taniq and the gunshots. She doesn’t tell him everything.

Her fear of Gaston is compounded by all of this. She’s never truly feared him before; worried he might discover her secret and found him more of a nuisance, yes, but never _feared_ until now. She wants to get into town and get out as quickly as possible.

And, Uraija help her, she wants to avoid the tavern. She knows what hangs in the tavern.

She lets out a shaky breath of relief as she slips in the door of the shop unseen by most. The smell of books is comforting; the shop is familiar to the point of being a second home. The shopkeeper is a friendly face amongst borderline hostile stares. With the way she frequents the shop, she’s his best customer.

The bell rings with a relaxing song. The shopkeeper, previously occupied with a middle shelf on the far wall, looks up at the note with genuine surprise painted on his face. He very nearly drops the book he’s holding.

“Belle!” he gasps. “My goodness, it’s been days! Is everything all right?”

Belle resists the urge to tell him everything—the hunt, the nightmares, the fallen bear—and settles for fiddling with the book in her hands. “Oh, yes,” she says instead, “just busy.” She forces a smile. “You know my father, always needing help with his new inventions. I haven’t been able to get away.”

She hasn’t helped her father in days. He’s insisted he doesn’t need it, even when she says her shoulder is fine.

The slight frown on the shopkeeper’s face relaxes into a smile. “Well, it’s good to see you again. I’ve got some new books I think you’ll be interested in! Here, come look.” He directs Belle, relieved that he doesn’t ask any more questions, to the shelf he had been restocking and goes about finishing another shelf as she browses the current one.

Immediately she picks out her favorite book, the other one her mother used to read to her at night, and scoops it up. She scans the shelf for others, anything shapeshifter-related, even. And while she comes up empty handed on that front, she does find a copy of Macbeth—and oh, is that _Jack and the Bean Stalk,_ why not?—and ends up with a total of four books to keep her occupied for a while. She thanks the shopkeeper and leaves with three of the books tucked into her basket. The other is in her face, though it does little to distract her from the world around her. Her instincts are sharp.

She’s on the lookout.

Thankfully, she makes it out of the village and over the bridge without issue. It’s only then that the wind distracts her from her reading and calls her back to the woods. She lowers her book, looking to the tree line with longing in her heart. She’s still not healed enough to shift, yet the woods call to her.

This time, unfortunately, she has to ignore them.

Tokka stops by later in the day to check on her again. He’s been by every day since his initial visit. She doesn’t mind, it’s nice to have company when she’s been cooped up for days on end and the books alone are no longer enough to keep her mind busy.

They sit in silence most of them time, with Belle leaning against Tokka and reading her book, sometimes to him, sometimes to herself. Today she reads to herself until she can’t focus on the words. She puts the book away at that point and settles against Tokka.

The last few days have been quiet. The bears have been cautious but active, always on the lookout for Gaston. Everyone, thankfully is safe, and enjoys the waning days of autumn as well as they can.

“Second Rush is nearly here,” Tokka says. A few scattered red leaves on the nearby tree begin to fall, one of them landing with a gentle skid across the stone walkway at Belle’s feet.

Belle hums. “Let’s see how my shoulder is by then,” she says, rolling it gently. The new scar tissue twinges and pulls uncomfortably. “If I can shift, I’ll try to make it.”

“I hope to see you there,” Tokka says. “But please, go straight home this time.”

She pushes her face into his thick fur. “I will.” This time she will. The memories of gunpowder and metal and blood still find a way to be fresh in her mind, to fill her stomach with fear. She’s in no rush to have a repeat of the same events. This time, _Go straight home_ is an order she’s not looking to disobey again.

Tokka huffs. “Have you seen the hunter lately?”

“No,” Belle says, “I’ve been lucky.” She hasn’t been into town since picking up her books. Fortunately, it keeps her away long enough that she doesn’t risk seeing Gaston—not that he’s much the bold type to come parading up to her front door, anyhow. Unfortunately, her insatiable hunger for anything printed on paper meant that she was nearly finished with her books and would be due back in town in another few days. “So far.”

A moment of silent passed before Tokka sighs and asks, “He doesn’t know?”

Belle takes a shaky breath. “No. I’d like to keep it that way.” She sat up, holding her knees to her chest and resting her chin on them. “He chases after me,” she says. “He wants me to marry him. I don’t know what he would do if he ever found out. The ability is hereditary. I’d pass it down to his children—to anyone’s children.”

“Bear or human?”

 _Bear?_ Belle hasn’t considered the possibility of taking a bear as her mate. It would be terribly convenient, she must admit, but she’s sure the result would be the same. “They’d have a human form, I’d think,” she says. But still, she shakes her head. “I have no way of knowing for sure. I’ve never heard of a shapeshifter mating with one of their own form.”

Her companion hums. “Interesting.” He lets out another huff, watching as a leaf falls from a nearby tree. “I learn something new about your kind every day,” he says, and falls silent for a moment before beginning again with a sigh of thought. “Do you ever feel lost?” he asks.

Belle raises her head from against Tokka and cranes her head to look at him. “Lost?” she echoes. “How do you mean?”

“Somewhere…in between,” he clarifies, with a note of uncertainty. “Not quite human, but not quite bear.”

Belle takes a moment to consider this. She’s certainly felt like an outsider, among the bears primarily, as someone who lived among humans and only evidently took her bear form when it was convenient. But among humans…she isn’t sure she’d say she felt the same. It is, perhaps, her upbringing around them that she feels like less of an outsider among them. That, and she’s technically more human than bear or shifter.

“I can’t say so,” she answers. “More cautious around humans, yes, but…not lost, I think.” She sits up further. “Why do you ask?”

The great bear shakes his head. “It was a thought,” he said. “I know the other bears are skeptical of you. I sometimes wonder if the humans get the same way.”

“No,” Belle says with a sigh, leaning back on her friend. “Humans are less intuitive about these things than bears are. No one knows anything.”

_Though I came close that night in the woods._

“I’d like to keep it that way, too.”

Tokka nods understandingly.

They sit together in silence thereafter, enjoying each other’s company, until the last few rays if sunlight begin to dip beyond the horizon. Tokka, at this point, bids Belle farewell, and sets out on his way at an easy lope over the hill.

“I’ll see you at Second Rush!” he calls over his shoulder as he lopes away.

“Yes!” Belle waves after him until he’s a brown blotch on the horizon. And when he’s gone, she goes inside.


	3. when the smoke falls

Second Rush comes and goes and before Belle knows it, autumn is well on its way and winter isn’t that far behind. Her shoulder had been well enough that she was able to shift and join the bears for the final rush of the season, though the scar tissue prevented her from being in bear form for long and she spent the remainder of the Rush watching from the shore. Only Tokka was kind enough to step from his place to join her at the river’s edge with a fresh caught fish and an offer to share it with him. Belle graciously took the offer, a few mouthfuls of raw fish, and a splash of water as Tokka eased himself back into the river.

“My deepest apologies,” he’d said, not without a shine in his eyes. Belle offered him a playful glare as she rang the water out of her hair.

A few days after that and the bears are asleep for the winter; Belle had gotten to say a last farewell to Tokka before he disappeared into his cave for the winter. There was a noticeable calm among the bears as the Long Sleep drew closer, the hunting incident a distant yet still heavy memory, dulled only by the bone-deep need to sleep. Belle hoped Taniq’s sister would sleep well this winter, the first without her brother.

It was a feeling she was all too familiar with. She hadn’t gotten the chance to speak to Mina herself, but she had passed on a message to her through Tokka and hoped that when the spring came they would be able to talk.

Belle can’t help the sense of loneliness that came over her in the next few days after hibernation begins. She occupies herself with her books and helping her father, though she continues to think of her fellow bears in her unoccupied time, wondering how she was going to make it through yet another winter without them. It was always a struggle, it seemed, to be the only bear awake during the winter. She refrains from shifting in those months, to avoid rumors and bullets, much the same reason she avoids going into town so frequently.

But, soon enough, her books run out, and town is where she has to go for another.

The sun rises over her little cottage on the morning of her much-awaited and much-dreaded excursion as she picks up her book from the couch-side table and places it in her basket. She rushes out the door with a quick good-bye to her father, promising to be back as soon as possible to help him with his most troublesome invention, a machine that would cut wood on its own and stack it neatly. The great bulky thing is plagued with one problem or another; no matter what Maurice tries, he can never seem to fix all the problems at once. Every so often he talks of smashing it, and on those occasions, Belle holds her tongue from offering her services as stomping the thing into dust in bear form. She believes in her father, and she knows from past experiences that whatever difficulties he faces with this invention are ones he’ll figure out sooner or later.

(And if he had his way, it would be sooner. The fair is only a few days away, and Maurice has been buzzing all year with excitement and talk of showing off his latest project in front of an interested crowd.)

This morning is unusually warm for an autumn morning, and of course, after the bears have already begun their winter slumber; Belle greets the birds, the only animals remaining until the first frost settles on the grass, with a light heart and a smile as they flutter off. Such a pleasant sound, bird song, compared to the harsh crow of her resident rooster.

“Safe flight!” she calls after them, even when she knows they won’t respond. The language barrier, between human and animal, and even animal and animal, is often troublesome. She only hopes they know she isn’t yelling obscenities at them.

The town is just beginning to wake as she crosses the bridge. The familiar greeting of _“Bonjour!”_ echoed through the streets. It’s both comforting and tiresome, the routine and monotony of it all. Belle longs for something beyond this, beyond this stale existence, where she knows the daily routine of each and every person she passes. The butcher, with his meat cart; the baker, with his tray of fresh-baked bread; the pumpkin farmer, with his cart stacked to the top. Only at times like this is it that she knows she’s more like the peasant girl than the White Bear. Her aching for adventure and new experiences is insatiable. This little provincial town can only hold her for so long.

She huffs to herself, basket swinging against her legs, as the baker heads to his shop, carefully yet effortlessly balancing the high-stacked tray as he carries it to the window of the bakery.

“Good morning, Belle!” The red-bearded baker greets her with a gruff voice as he places his tray on the windowsill of his shop, preparing for the long day ahead. “Where are you off to?”

“The bookshop,” she replies, relishing the conversation. Though they knew her well enough, whether out of pleasantry or notoriousness, it was always a pleasant time whenever one of the villagers aside from the bookseller held a conversation with her, however short it may be.

_I know the other bears are skeptical of you. I sometimes wonder if the humans get the same way._

Tokka’s words haven’t left her mind since their last conversation on her porch. She wonders now, as she has since then, if there’s some merit to the statement. The townsfolk don’t talk to her. Perhaps they _did_ sense there’s more to her than she lets on. Or perhaps it’s not so much her nature as a shapeshifter as it is her tendency to have her nose stuck in the newest book she’s picked up. Humans, she’s noticed, don’t tend to pick up on things such as inhuman energies. The bears, on the other hand, knew right away before she ever set foot in the river that something was decidedly off about her. And while they’ve warmed up to it, Belle isn’t so sure the humans would.

“I just finished the most wonderful story,” she continues, pushing the statement and the following train of thought out her mind for now, “about a beanstalk and an ogre and—"

“That’s nice,” the baker says dismissively, only half-listening, as she’s found most do. “Marie! The baguettes!”

And Tokka’s words come back. Belle sighs, rolls her eyes, and moves on. _No, he_ _’s just busy. As always._ But she can’t hold back that nagging feeling that’s been poking at her for weeks.

 _But surely full humans can_ _’t be that intuitive, can they?_ She begins to get lost in her thoughts, even while the whispers about her run rampant as she goes. _I couldn_ _’t say for sure. I am more human than bear, but I’m a shifter nonetheless. Of course, my instincts are sharper than a human’s. I certainly read more than most of them do. I suppose that’s uncommon enough. No, they couldn’t possibly know what I am. Not even Gaston knows what I am._

A small cart drawn by a peppy yellow horse passes; Belle grips the back handle and hoists herself up, watching the growing activity of the village at a distance, so near yet so far. And all of them blissfully unaware that a bear so casually traversed the streets in their midst.

“—That’s too expensive—”

“—I need six eggs!—”

Her stop doesn’t require any turns. The bookshop is only a few feet down the main road, and the driver of the cart hardly diverges from the same path he drives every morning. The sign of the bookstore, hanging just over the door, comes into view within moments. And with that, she hops off the cart, right at the front door of the bookshop. The bell rings with friendly familiarity as she opens the lower half of the door and is greeted by the smiling face of the shopkeeper.

“Ah, Belle!” He’s the friendliest of the townspeople, always happy to greet her as though he’s been expecting her to drop in at any time.

“Good morning! I’m here to return the book I borrowed.” She hands him the book, watching the look of surprise that lights his face. Somehow, the man continues to be shocked by the speed at which Belle reads what she borrows. Surely he knows her by now, that slowing down isn’t an option?

“Finished already?”

“Oh,” she says, climbing the ladder to browse the shelves for something new, “I couldn’t put it down! Have you got anything new?”

The shopkeeper laughs. “No, not since yesterday!”

“That’s alright!” Belle skims the shelves and pulls a book she’s read several times before already. It’s the other book her mother used to read to her at night, aside from _East of the Sun and West of the Moon._ “I’ll take this one.”

And, upon seeing the title, the shopkeeper laughs and shakes his head in good humor. “But you’ve read it twice!”

She doesn’t say it, but she’ll read it a fourth and a fifth time after this, much like her own tale. It is her favorite, after all, and what kind of enthusiast would she be if she didn’t let him know?

He laughs again, resting his hand on his back as she climbs down from the ladder and he guides her toward the door. “If you like it all the much, it’s yours.”

Belle’s heart leaps. She thanks the shopkeeper profusely as she leaves, though he insists it’s nothing and urges her on her way. She’s giddy with excitement as she opens the book she can at last call her own and makes her way to the center of town and sits down on the fountain. A small herd of sheep gathers around her as she reads, and it’s perhaps out of habit developed with Tokka that she starts to read out loud to the two closest to her, who seem oddly attentive despite not knowing a word she’s saying, before the shepherd herds them away.

It’s disappointing and surprising at the same time. The sheep are the only ones in this town who willingly listen to her and show some kind of interest in what she has to say, and they aren’t afraid to come near her. It’s been her past experience that some animals are weary of her upon their first meeting, more so after she’s shifted before meeting them.

She picks herself up. How was it that the animals were far more understanding and far kinder than some of the villagers?

 _Oh well._ She sticks her nose back into her book and moves on.

The rest of the town passes quickly and quietly, to her, and she’s halfway through—

_Bang!_

Belle jumps. Her heart pounds. _Run, run, run! Run!_ She ducks behind the nearest building, book clutched to her chest.

_Gunshot. Trees. Night. Gaston. He_ _’s getting closer, closer—_

_Up the tree—_

_Climb—_

_CLIMB—_

**_RUN—_ **

_Papa!_

_“Belle?”_

She’s shaking. Her hands are closed so tightly around the book the edges of the cover she’s got marks on her fingers. Her shoulder burns, too hot, too hot, she’s not bleeding is she? Is it blood? There was blood that night, that night, she was in a tree, bark against her back—is it bark she leans against? Is it stone walls? Wasn’t there a book in her hands? One of the sheep had tried to rip a page out—

“Belle?”

Stone against her back. No blood on her shoulder. Her dress is dry. The sun is out. She’s clutching a blue-covered book to her chest. Belle looks up into the face of a concerned villager, a woman in a pastel pink-and-green dress. Marie, the baker’s wife. _Not Gaston. Not Gaston. Marie._ Her voice doesn’t work. She lets out a strained sigh in reply.

Marie rests a hand on Belle’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”

Belle wants to say yes. Saying no will mean explaining herself, revealing her secret, admitting she’s a shapeshifter—all the things she doesn’t want to do. Yet she finds it in herself to shake her head. _Help me, I_ _’m not all right._

“What’s the matter?”

“Gunshot,” Belle admits in a forced whisper. “Bad memories.” More than just her own shooting. She clutches her book tighter, curling in on herself. Her scar aches. The sound reverberates in her mind again and again. It burns her shoulder again and again and again. She flinches each time.

“Belle,” Marie says again. She kneels this time, both hands on Belle’s shoulders. “Look at me, dear.”

Belle does. Marie is looking at her with a mix of concern and curiosity. What could have happened that would upset her this way? Why is she so pale? Is she unwell? Does she need to see a doctor?

“Gaston?” she asks. Every question she possibly could have asked, all bouncing around against Belle’s skull at once, vanish in an instant.

“Yes,” Belle breathes, the only question she’s willing to answer. “The sound brings up…things I don’t want to remember.”If only it was the market, but she’d never heard the shot, then either—

“Ah.” Marie nods understandingly but asks no further questions. Her hands stays where they are as Belle breathes, steadying herself. She’s never felt like this before, this unnerved, shocked, afraid. Of the many things she had been expecting to feel or experience following the incident, it wasn’t this. Nothing could have prepared her for this. She inhales heavily.

“I—I just need to sit a moment,” Belle says. She’s still curled in on herself, but with less intensity. Her grip on her book lightens. It becomes a comfort, a familiar friend, rather than a protector. She has Marie at her side now; the book is keeping her grounded, keeping her from slipping to far in the void of thought, and she has so many thoughts. Some are calming, others she wants to purge, be rid of, never to recall again, though they continue to lurk in the deepest parts of her memories. Now, she thinks of calm, slowing her breathing and her heart. Reemerging onto the streets with a panicked air about is bound to bring more unwanted attention from the masses.

So she sits and breaths and thinks in black, until she feels well enough to continue. She stands hesitantly, legs unsteady and shaking gently, threatening to buckle underneath her, leaning on the wall with Marie’s support until she’s steady enough on her feet that she can stand on her own. Even so, Marie guides her back out onto the street, one hand on each shoulder. When they emerge onto the main path, Marie guides Belle to a spot up against the wall of the building, giving her the chance to readjust to the sun and the activity. Belle breathes in a heavy breath of air, filled with the scents of bread, meat, and fish. For a moment she thinks she catches the faint scent of gun smoke, but it fades into the wind among the scents of food and animals.

“Here,” Marie says. Belle looks down as Marie digs something out of her basket and slips two loaves of bread into Belle’s. Belle breathlessly thanks her, it’s one of the nicest things anyone’s done for her. “Think nothing of it, dear. Go home now. Get some rest.”

“Yes,” Belle says absently. _I_ _’ll do that._ She hooks her basket over her arm again and starts off. She returns to her book along the way, hoping to lose herself in the last few steps it takes her to depart the town and return home. This time, she gets lost with a purpose: to depart from this reality, where the source of her fear lurks, and, if only for a little while, live in a world of princes and princesses; in a book she knows so well, where the girl doesn’t know her newfound companion is the prince until chapter three.

So lost, in fact, that she very nearly runs into a figure in front of her. Her unconscious plan is to apologize and move on, with a quick look up from her book to be sure the person in front of her isn’t hurt. Those plans are dashed, burned to ashes, when the figure instead greets her with a smooth, deep voice: “Hello, Belle.”

All over again her heart races; the words on the page aren’t enough to take her out of this moment.

_Right there. That bear—watch._

_Gunshots—_

She forcefully recoils as she recognizes Gaston, halfway curls in on herself with a strangled huff, her fangs grazing her lip— _run run run run run run run—put your fangs away, don_ _’t let him know—_ she can’t shift, can’t run, can’t let him know, what will happen if he knows?

_Taniq_ _’s head won’t be the only one on that wall—_

Her book snaps shut, she clutches it to her chest all over again, as though he’s going to snatch it from her, but it’s not the book she’s worried about, no it’s her own _pelt—_ She stutters out a _bonjour_ , hoping he doesn’t notice the tremor in her voice or the defensiveness in the hunch of her shoulders, hoping he thinks it’s only because she’s surprised to see him. Gaston has never been the most observant of creatures and he isn’t about to start now.

Before she can say more, Gaston plucks the book from her hands. Belle doesn’t remember turning around, but she’s watching Gaston flip through her book, turning it one way, then the other, disgusted at the content, something about pictures—

 _Leave it,_ her instincts tell her. _It_ _’s not worth it. He’s distracted, leave it behind. Let it go. Save yourself._

But it was her favorite, her mother read it too her at night—

_Run._

She almost does, she almost gets away with the, the bridge isn’t that far, after all, but Gaston stops her in herr tracks. Her book is in the mud. Her eyes are glued to Gaston’s face, watching as his mouth forms words but not understanding what any of them mean. “I—” Her eyes drift to her book, sitting in the mud, soaking up water every second more she doesn’t get to it. She at last finds her way around him and rushes to the book. The damage isn’t as extensive as she first thought. A little muddy, but nothing she can’t clean off with her apron.

It’s a slow, deliberate movement to calm the violent thudding of her heart, and the shakiness in her hands. The calm, repetitive motion does something for her. Her breathing eases, just a little, though she still doesn’t know what Gaston is trying to say to her, and it takes a moment before her ears register anything.

“…focus on more important things. Like me.”

And her hearing cuts out again. She grips the book until her knuckles go white.

_Focus on—him? Him? He tried to kill me— I can_ _’t—_

Her hands are shaking all over again. Belle hugs the book to her chest again, tucking her hands under her arms. _Breathe. Breathe, keep breathing._ She forces a smile, shaking her head, and begins to back away toward the bridge. Her voice doesn’t work, won’t work, she can’t make it. Every word she tries to say dies in her throat before it cacn reacch her tongue.

“Come on now, Belle,” Gaston says, and hooks his arm around her shoulders. Belle’s vision goes white. She stiffens. Stops breathing. Her scar burns. _He_ _’s touching her—_ She can’t run—

“—go to the tavern—”

_Taniq—_

_RUN—_

“ _Get off!_ _”_ Belle rips herself away from Gaston’s hold. Everything goes slow for a moment, the town grinds to an agonizingly slow pace. Belle’s eyes are on Gaston, shocked and offended, and really she doesn’t care, and she can feel the eyes of nearby villagers burning into her being. No one says anything.

Belle backs away, book held close, the bridge is right there, so close, just a few steps away. She has to leave—

“My father—I need to—I nee—I have to go.” She turns and bolts across the bridge without looking back, though she swears she can hear a confused—or offended—noise from Gaston as she hurries off.


	4. when the sky darkens

Belle staggers home. Her chest is tight, her vision spotty. Her heart hammers in her chest and all she can think of is _home_ , away from Gaston, away from the town.

But of course, nothing is ever that simple. As she crosses the bridge, the explosion happens. Smoke blasts from the windows, from the doors, the basement. The sharp bang bolts through the air, straight through Belle’s chest. The sound is too loud, too reminiscent. Belle drops behind a tree.

She curls in on herself, shaking, rocking back and forth at the base of the tree, clutching the book to her chest, nose pushed into the cover. It still smells like the bookstore, like well-worn paper, warm and comforting, and she tries to focus on that and breathe.

_Breathe. Breathe._

Her thoughts are going dark again. She feels it at the edges of her mind, the night sky closing in on her, the hunter on her trails. She pushes her nose further into the book, breathing deeper and slower. It’s all she can do. Marie isn’t there this time.

_Mother, Mother, help me_ _…_

She sinks down against the tree. The roots seem to wrap around her, cradling her in her hour of need. She breathes, deeply, slowly, trying to think in black again, and it takes time, but it works. She comes back around, sweating and still shaking, but she’s at least able to pull herself up and crawl down to the stream to splash water on her face.

And it helps. The cold settles her system, calms her down. When she looks up at the house, there’s still smoke leaking from the windows and the doors, but nowhere near as much as in the initial explosion.

“Papa!” Belle pushes herself to her feet and staggers home as quickly as she can manage. _Help Papa, help Papa—for get about the hunter— help Papa—_

Smoke leaks from the cellar door. A cloud of it suffocates her; she fights her way through it, coughing all the way to the bottom of the stairs. Her father is upside down in a nearby barrel, presumably thrown there in the force of the explosion, though Belle sees no mechanical remains or shrapnel littering the workshop. What she does see, once her father rights himself and escapes the barrel, is Maurice’s newest and evidently defunct invention sitting slouched and smoking in one corner.

“Papa?” she asks. “Are you all right?”

Maurice huffs. “I’m about to give up on this hunk of junk!” He kicks the machine; it jerks and stills and smokes a little less. Whether that’s a good sign or bad remains to be seen.

Belle forces a smile, pushing her experience in town and lingering fear as far away as she can manage. _She_ _’s home, she’s safe, no one can hurt her here. It’s just the invention malfunctioning, it’s not a gunshot, it’s not a hunter._ Her father always insisted on giving up on this machine, ever since he started work on it. And Belle always convinced him otherwise; that he would become a world-famous inventor one day. Each time she says so, he smiles at her.

“You really believe that?”

“I always have.”

It’s just the spark he needs. Maurice jumps into action, slipping his work goggles on as he rolls underneath the machine. He waves aimlessly to Belle. “Eh, hand me that dog-legged clencher there.”

Belle takes a moment to retrieve her book from her basket before digging into her father’s toolbox for the clencher. _Her hands are still shaky._ She hands it to him, tensing as he asks, “Did you have a good time in town today?” Does she tell him about the gunshot? About Gaston? About Taniq? She hasn’t spoken about Taniq yet, although she doubts she has to; Maurice understands why Belle has never set foot in the tavern and never will, not for anything. It brings up worse things she’s tried to forget.

She hums absently at first, the wave of fear she’d tried to dam up pushing back at her. Her hands are unsteady, her legs are beginning to feel the same way… She sits down on the floor beside the fireplace, hugging the book.

“Belle?”

“Mmhm.” She stares down at book, attempting and failing to focus on the mud stains on the cover and the dried dirt on the pages. She can only imagine what the inside looks like now. _I saw Gaston today,_ she wants to say, but the words don’t come. They choke her instead, trying to drag her down to a place she doesn’t want to be.

“Belle?” The creaking underneath the machine stops. Belle barely hears it, swept up in a tide she doesn’t want to be in, one dark and fearful and full of bullet and red—

A hand—Maurice’s hand on her shoulder makes her jump. Her book falls to her lap, then slips onto the floor. She takes a sharp breath, remembering how to breathe— “Belle, what’s wrong?”

She shakes her head. _I saw the hunter I saw who shot me he tried to take me into the tavern one of our own bears was shot his head is mounted on the wall I know his sister_

Maurice takes his goggles of his head and holds Belle against his shoulder. He smells of burnt metal and fire and smoke. And it’s _him_ , it’s not the gun smell of burnt metal, it’s steam and grinding gears. “What happened, Belle?”

She takes a tight hold of his work apron. “Gunshot,” she said. “The tavern.” It’s too much. Every ounce of distress and tension she’d been holding in comes out on her father’s shoulder. He doesn’t ask questions until she’s calm enough to answer them coherently, and it’s then that she at lasts tells him about her nightmares, about Taniq, about her fears that Gaston will discover what she is.

Maurice doesn’t demand to know why she didn’t tell him sooner. What he does instead is ask her what he can do for her, offer his condolences for Taniq’s loss, even as he tears up for the same reason Belle cries.

“This invention will be the start of a new life for us,” he whispers into her hair.

The words “I know” come out as a sniff and a cough. Belle nods against his shoulder.

Maurice rubs circles on Belle’s shoulder. “We’ll go somewhere far from here,” he says, “where you won’t have to worry about hunters. You can shift all you want and no one will ever see it. It’ll be you, and me, and—eh, just us. It’ll just be us.”

She can’t decide if his choice of words there is better or worse. Nonetheless, she knows what he means.

Minutes tick by before Belle is able to affirm Maurice’s future plans. Her voice is raspy and hoarse, still choked with unshed tears she doesn’t have the energy for today. “That would be nice.” To get away from this small provincial town is something she’s yearned for since the day they arrived. To be somewhere open and wild and free from the prying eyes of nosy townspeople and neighbors is a life Belle longs for. She’s never seen much point in being a shapeshifter when she can’t use her other form.

Not that _not shifting_ has ever been a danger. Shapeshifters of any age are capable of going weeks or months without shifting—years is too long, practically maddening. Children can only go for shorter periods; adults longer, and while Belle is perfectly able to go the span of the winter months without taking bear form, she’s one of those who succumb to the shapeshifter variation of cabin fever. They have no name for it, though Belle recognizes it when it hits, and on the occasion it does.

Maurice’s hand stops suddenly; Belle feels a subtle shift in his mood. “If you need me to stay home—"

“ _No._ ” She doesn’t mean for it to sound so harsh. She needs out. She needs to get away from this town, from these people, from that tavern…but not at the cost of her father’s chance of getting them both out.

 _If only Tokka were awake still._ His company might make Maurice’s absence more bearable were he not in the midst of Hibernation.

“No,” she repeats. She looks up at him with a weak smile. “You go. I know you’ll win first prize. And then—” she sniffs “—and then we can start over.”

Maurices sighs, laying his hand on Belle’s head. “You’re sure? Belle, your wellbeing matters more to me than any prize at any fair. If you need me to stay, I’ll stay.”

“You go,” she says. “I’ll be all right, you go.” She somehow manages to convinces Maurice to fix it, with every confidence that he would win first prize at the fair tomorrow. _I need to get out, I can_ _’t wait another year. I need to get out. I need to get out._

The bounce returns, gently, to Maurice’s step as he pats Belle on the head and returns to fixing the underbelly of the machine. Belle remains by the fireplace, wiping her eyes and feeling lighter than she had on her walk home. Of course she could always count on her father to get her through a rough patch. He may not have been terribly well-versed in shapeshifter affairs and concerns as her mother was, but he understood her reasons for being upset. Understood her fears.

Aside from Tokka, and in the absence of her mother, Maurice is the only other adult Belle feels comfortable confiding in.

Watching him work, hearing the clicks and creeks and groans of the his invention as he tinkers with it, is soothing. It’s a familiar sound, dating back to the earliest days of her life she can remember, and it’s been there ever since. Whatever other chaos arises in their lives, Maurice’s endlessly creative and continually working mind is a constant.

At last he emerges from underneath the machine, and odd sort of a barrel, an ax, a teapot...If Belle didn’t already know what her father was trying to accomplish with this odd hybrid machine, she would never have any idea what it was even supposed to do.

“That should do it!” Maurice raises his goggles from his eyes, filled with their usual spark and shine. “Now, let’s give it a try.” He pulls the lever.

Belle flinches involuntarily, fully expecting the machine to sputter and scream and erupt in a cloud of smoke as it had earlier. Instead, much to her pleasant surprise, the machine whistles, hums to life, and in a matter of a minute or two begins chopping wood and neatly depositing it into the pile against the far wall.

She laughs, giddy with excitement. “It works!”

“It works?” Maurice, having looked away, now looks back as another half of log flies over his head. “It works!”

“You did it!” Belle, all fears and worries forgotten, can’t resist a hop. She hugs Maurice. Her father is a brilliant, brilliant man and she’ll never let him forget it! “You really did it!”

Log after log flies past them, all evenly cut and all landing neatly in the wood pile. If that isn’t a winner, Belle doesn’t know what is.

Maurice raises a hand in triumph. “Hitch up Phillipe, girl! I’m off to the fair!”

It doesn’t take her long to get Philippe hitched to the cart, and before she knows it, Maurice and their Belgian draft are on their way to the fair. Her father had only paused once before mounting the horse to be sure she wouldn’t mind being alone for a few days.

“You’re absolutely sure?” he says. His hands are on her shoulders. His voice is even with seriousness. “You’ll be all right while I’m gone?”

Belle’s fears return in little twinges in her chest. “Yes,” she says, though she wonders if she means it, “I’ll be all right.”

And that was how Maurice left it before he at last mounted Phillip and set off on his journey.

“Goodbye, Papa!” Belle waves after him. “Good luck!”

“Goodbye, Belle!” He waves back to her. “And take care while I’m gone!”

“I will!”

But when the cart and all have disappeared over the hill, Belle doesn’t know what to do with herself. She’s alone, Maurice going out of town, many miles out of town; Tokka is deep in hibernation. No one is around to protect her should the need arise. Standing on the hill, incredibly alone and very much exposed, Belle is aware of her severe lack of refuges outside and inside her home.

Shifting is no longer an option. Roaming as a bear outside the house is out of the question. Papa won’t be there this time to help her if she gets shot. Tokka won’t be there to check on her.

She exhales. _Relax. Plan. Think._ And she does. The fair lasts four days. It will take Maurice half a day to arrive and another half to get back. All in all, he’ll be gone five days.

_I can do this._

Belle elects to stay at home the next five days, only going into town if she absolutely has to, though she’ll read and reread her books as many times as possible. She shuts the cellar doors after she’s sure Maurice has gone, then sets about feeding the goats and the chickens for the night, and at last goes inside.


End file.
